Check out this interesting article from GracefulFlavor about how the iPhone forced RIM’s hand into producing a device that fell outside its engineering strengths.

The BlackBerry Storm, in my opinion, is a wonderful illustration of how Apple’s innovation and market appeal can force a smart company like RIM to invest millions of dollars in a product that’s way outside its core competency. You don’t see Apple trying to create a full-on enterprise/e-mail device, do you?

The article also points out that the Storm is a mobile device, and not yet a platform like Apple’s iPhone. This will become increasingly clear, and frustrating, to Storm users hoping for an iPhone-esque software experience. Developers want to write cool programs and get paid for it – they’re gonna follow the money and they’re going to follow the users. Unfortunately for RIM, both reside in the iTunes App Store and there are no signs that this is going to change anytime soon.